Is that a spaceship or am I still drunk - Chapter 14

I had expected to party for a little while in Adelaide. What I did not expect was for this party to continue for the next four weeks. Upon arriving in the city we booked into the Adelaide City Backpackers which was located just out of the centre on Carrington Street next to a pub called the Saracens Head. The hostel served our needs perfectly. It was cheap, well located, had a fantastic owner and attracted a great bunch of backpackers. The four of us piled into the same dorm along with another eight people who seemed to change each day. One morning I'd wake up with an Aussie hippy underneath me (bunk beds) meditating and the next morning I'd be woken up by a Brazilian pumping a girl for all he was worth. I liked the randomness of what I may find.

We had to sleep on bunk beds and the dorm stunk of sweaty feet but it didn't matter we were having so much fun that this was of little detriment. The owner was a guy called Rick who went out of his way to ensure that his guests had a good time. Festivities would usually begin with a barbie in the back yard around 5 pm and would end, for the hardcore at least as late as breakfast time the next day. I certainly wasn't one of them. I was lucky if I made it to midnight, that damn Mitton gene kicking in again. Sometimes we'd play drinking games and I'd be in bed by 9 pm.

Upon occasion we'd head to Rundle Street which was the pulsing heart beat of the city for going out, but we tried to keep this to a minimum to cut costs. One night we went to the cinema to see The Crying Game and Kev and I bumped into some people that we knew from before we'd known each other. Quite bizarrely I was to become really good friends with the couple that Kev knew and I am still friends with them today some 20 years later, although I haven't heard from Kev since the year 2000.

One night we got some weed which resulted in Mark getting paranoid and hiding up a tree in the street outside the hostel. The poor guy refused to come down and was petrified that we'd leave him. "Boys, boys, please don't leave me boys", he shouted to us in his pompous Home Counties accent. We left him there and went to the pub for a few hours where we soon forgot all about him. When we came back in the small hours of the morning he was still up there calling out for help. I don't think that he ever forgave us for that. To be honest there'd been a rift opening up between Mark and I for some time so I found his pathetic whimpering particularly humorous. It seemed to conflict with his dream of dying in battle for his country, quite poetically.

The city itself seemed really nice with lots of green open space and a lake but to be honest it wasn't really of much interest to us. Our life in Adelaide was for 90 percent of the time contained within the four walls of the hostel. I only really ventured into the city to the poste restante section of the post office to see if I had any mail. This was the equivalent of checking my emails back then.

We befriended a couple of Aussie drifters in our dorm who stayed there for a week or so. They were two brothers with the younger one being slightly deranged. I tried my best to integrate the brothers into our circle of friends and they seemed grateful for it. When they left however so did my electric razor which my mum had bought me for Christmas. I was so annoyed with them for repaying my kindness like this that I vowed to hunt them down. Our group of four ran around Adelaide looking for them and eventually found them booking into the YMCA. We confronted them but they denied it so we called the police. The police said that we had no proof because the shaver was no longer on their person. I spent the rest of he day searching the pawn brokers shops and I was so convinced that I had found my shaver that I called the police again and got them to come and check. Despite my protests that it was my shaver the pawn broker had receipts to prove otherwise and the police officer was angry at me for wasting police time. I put my loss down to experience and decided to grow a goatee beard.

The hostel seemed to attract quite a lot of drifter types, and the demographic always seemed to be guys in their twenties who were alone and either preparing to go into the wilderness for a week, or had just returned from the wilderness. It seemed like such a cool thing to do to me and got my brain ticking.

"Hey lads, do you fancy going into the wilderness for a while to try and find ourselves", I asked the boys.

"More like fucking lose ourselves", Kev replied, his cockney wit never failing to let him down.

To my surprise they all seemed to be into the idea. We'd been in Adelaide for far too long already and we were scared that we would never leave (not as scared as Rick though). Everybody agreed that a little trip into the outback would be a great way to draw us away from the place and indeed the party lifestyle. My 24th birthday was coming up so we decided that we would aim to celebrate this somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Five minutes of research later and we'd chosen both the starting point and our end point to our journey. If we had done some research into what lay in-between we may not have ended up almost dying of thirst exhaustion.

Within the week we'd packed a small bag each and were heading for the bus stop. Our initial plans proved to be too over ambitious. We had wanted to get a boat to Kangaroo Island and then trek the length of the island. When we looked into it we found out that we needed permits to travel there so we opted for the next best thing. If we got a bus to Cape Jervis we could then hike to Victor Harbour. Our hike would follow the coast looking out over Kangaroo Island in the distance. On the map it looked okay, then again a few inches on a piece of paper are never going to look difficult, especially when you're drunk when you are examining it. As the Crow flew the distance between the two towns was just over 60 km. I don't think that we ever bothered to check how far this was in actual terms which would have probably been a good idea since we chose to follow a route that stuck so rigidly to the coast line. In fact very little thought went into the trip at all. We had a sleeping bag, a change of clothes each and a shared map which we'd ripped out of the back of a magazine and showed practically no detail. We grabbed a load of de-hydrated packets of rice and pasta dishes to eat and took a litre of water each to drink. Surely we'd be able to fill these bottles up from a creek on the way, right? Or so we thought.

A few hours after leaving Cape Jervis I realised that this was a pretty shitty idea. This thought process coincided with our first big ascent. For the next five hours only pride would keep me going. I know the others felt the same way but nobody would admit it. The problem was that the landscape was so bloody undulating; we'd get to the top of one crest and see that there was another even bigger one coming up. A more demoralising scene I'd never encountered. Finally hunger, thirst and lethargy got the better of me and I conceded.

"Hey lads, this is bollocks I'm not walking any further, I'm fucked", I admitted.

Adam and Kev totally agreed but Mark being Mark (his new nick name was the scout leader) did not. In retrospect I guess that this was a good thing because just giving up was never really a viable option.

"Come on boys, we need to get together and conquer this thing", Mark encouraged us.

"Well, you three can do what you want I'm going to sleep", I told them.

Five minutes later I was asleep and the others had wandered off in the wilderness in the search of water. Our own supply was down to one bottle by now so this was most definitely a good idea. 
A sudden noise awoke me from my slumber. At first I wasn't quite sure where I was, de-hydration had definitely got a grip on me. It took a few seconds for me to remember that I had gone to sleep in a futile attempt to escape from my situation. I guess that this was the equivalent of an ostrich sticking its head in the sand or a tortoise retiring into its shell (I've always admired tortoises for that little trick.) But as I looked around it all came flooding back to me- the dreadful hike, the large ascents, the lack of water and the curious kangaroo. Wait a minute, the curious kangaroo! What the fuck was he doing there? The most enormous kangaroo that I had ever seen was literally face to face with me. But what's more it seemed more startled by my presence than I was with its. For around five seconds it felt as though time stood still as we both stared at each other. It was only then that I noticed the little joey standing behind it. It was such a beautiful moment. After a few seconds the kangaroo bounced off into the distance with the joey in close pursuit. The whole episode had only been a brief moment in time but the image will stay with me for life.

The others returned with good news. "What is it?" I eagerly asked. But they wouldn't tell me, they said that I should follow them instead. "Have you found water?" I questioned. "Just follow us" they replied "all will be revealed to you." In my head I was imagining all sorts of scenarios which ranged from a valley full of nymphs to a beautiful crystal clear lake to swim in. What I didn't imagine to see as we reached the crest of the ridge was a bloody great spaceship. I shit you not; there right before my very eyes down in a valley was what appeared to be a spaceship surrounded by a garden and a large fence. If the others weren't there with me to confirm its existence I would have put it down to the fact that I had been drunk for the past month. But sure enough we were all witnessing the same thing. "Let's go and investigate?" I asked and everyone agreed.

Upon closer inspection the spaceship appeared to be somebody's house and nobody seemed to be home. A dirt track ran from the rear of the "house" and back towards civilisation. We couldn't actually see an entrance so we imagined that a ladder must drop down underneath it just like on a real spaceship, or should I say on our perception of what a real spaceship would look like. In the garden was a massive water storage tank which was just about to get raided - if only we had more bottles. We sent Adam over the fence to do this for us because he was the most experienced thief amongst us.

After taking the water we continued our journey until we could walk no further. When this happened we dropped our packs, laid out our sleeping bags and cooked a pasta meal using Scout Master Mark's army issue cooking equipment. Our camp was at the top of an ascent, perched virtually on the edge of a cliff. The view was phenomenal looking out over Kangaroo island. No hotel in the world could have been better than this. The four of us lay there in silence taking in this beautiful sight alone with our thoughts. I remember thinking how little we need in this life, some shelter from the elements, a bit of food and water, some friends and some love, mix them all together and hey presto the recipe for a wonderful life. Why do people prefer to complicate this with the weight of material possessions rooting them to the spot? Oh well, each to their own I guess. How lucky I was that I had found out the secret to a happy existence only days before my 24th birthday.
If we thought that the day time view was great then we were certainly in for a treat with the night view. As daylight faded into darkness out came an ocean of stars, shining like perfect diamonds in the sky. This was a sight to equal the night skies that I had witnessed back in Massachusetts on the summer camp. Only this time the sky was alive with shooting stars. Mark informed us that they could be satellites but I chose to ignore him and to live the dream that these were indeed all shooting stars.

The next day we walked all day and nobody complained about the undulating landscape. We were still beaming with happiness from the beauty that we had witnessed the night before. Some time in the late afternoon we found a beautiful beach where we set up camp. We hadn't seen anybody for days and it was all quite wonderful. That night we made a fire on the beach and once again we were treated to the most beautiful night sky.

Three days later and we were still there. We'd decided that we liked the beach so much that we would celebrate my birthday there before heading back to Cape Jervis. By now our food was running low and our attempts at fishing were unsuccessful. We spent our days swimming, chatting about our future plans and exploring and I must say it was all quite wonderful -it took me back to my childhood. On one of my exploring trips I found a balloon with the words happy birthday on it, it felt like a gift from the gods. On the 20th April 1993 I inflated the balloon and we celebrated my birthday in the most glorious surroundings - how could life get any better than this?
 
The next day somehow made it back to Cape Jervis in one long slog. We may as well not even bothered though. When we made enquiries at the only shop in the area we were to find out that the next bus to Adelaide wasn't for another 36 hours. So is the life of a traveller that none of us really cared. As many long term travellers will tell you, time soon becomes irrelevant. We were just happy to have a shop at our disposal and positively delighted with the plastic table and four chairs which were located outside the shop. We positioned ourselves on these chairs and picnicked for the next day, grabbing only a few hours of sleep in the field behind the shop. Upon hearing our tale about the spaceship the owner laughed and told us the story behind it. It was owned by an eccentric lawyer who had lived there for years and had spent millions of dollars making the road to his property.

Once back in Adelaide we gathered our stuff, waved goodbye to Rick and the other friends that we had made in the hostel and headed north. The past five weeks had been good but our vital organs were in dire need of a rest.

Jaisalmer, the thief and the aggressive policemen

I arrive a day later than anticipated in Jaisalmer due to reasons disclosed in a previous story. My travel companions whom I had earlier met in Jodphur, 2 boys from Leeds and 2 sisters from Devon have arrived a day earlier and have taken up lodgings somewhere in this desert town. It's April of 1994, long before the masses have got mobile phones or email access. In those days, travel was so much different, if you didn't see the person around the town then you may never see them again. However, most travellers were taking the same route around Asia, so it was not uncommon to bump into the same people throughout this largest of continents. I find the nearest guest house, drop off my bags and go off to search for them.


It is not long before I find the quartet in question, who are feasting in an outdoor cafe. I take a seat and we exchange tales of our bhang lassi hallucinogenic escapades. Feeling relaxed, I sit back with my hands behind my head and waves of pleasure running through my body. It is late afternoon and the sun is slowly beginning it's descent. I take in the view and what a fantastic view it is. Jaisalmer lies in the heart of the Thar desert and stands on a ridge of orange sandstone crowned by a magnificent fort. All around are gloriously crafted sandstone buildings, which are now beautifully illuminated by the late afternoon sun. It is breathtaking and the most deserty place that you could ever imagine. I feel like I am on the film set for Lawrence of Arabia.


The next few days are spent in awe of the place. Our routine is to meet up to breakfast on a roof terrace which overlooks the Thar desert. This in itself is so relaxing that we make it as leisurely as possible with much coffee and excited conversation about our future plans. After breakfast we walk around the walled town and take in the everyday sights, the old lady peddling her wares, the children playing in the street, the dogs dreaming as they shelter from the sun and other such desert town activities. We walk around the market stalls and examine the arts and crafts which are for sale at very low prices. All talk is about what we will buy before we leave India and how much profit we stand to make. Retrospectively speaking, I did actually manage to make a tidy profit by buying and selling chillums and pipes. These were purchased at 30p each in India and knocked out for £10 each at the Corn Exchange in Manchester.


On day 3, our quintet head off into the Thar desert on camel back. At first my camel does not seem to enjoy my company and constantly spins his head around to glare at me. I am wary that camels spit and therefore I am on my guard. Fortunately my camel is not a spitter. A few hours into my first day of trekking, Colin (as I affectionately name him) has taken a liking to me and his glares have turned into loving glances. We are now a happy union of man and beast, strolling across the desert with all the time in the world. When we stop for food and water breaks,Colin lowers himself gently to the ground and lets me alight his humpy body with dignity.


We spend 2 days and 1 night in the desert and see some wondrous sights. As dusk falls on the first day we see an apparition in the distance. As we approach, the figure of a hunched up old man is revealed to us. This guy is swathed in robes and wears a headdress. He plays a flute and before him a cobra sways to his every musical note. Now, call me a sceptic but I am assuming that this guy does not sit all day playing his flute to an audience of a trillion grains of sand. Though at the time I was so excited that we had chanced upon this nomadic, indigenous, desert person. From a retrospective vantage point of 15 years, I now believe that this guy was strategically positioned on a tourist super highway awaiting other Colin the camel's and crew's to arrive on an hourly basis and fill his tin cup with rupee's.


It is with even deeper glee that we see a gazelle in the desert and my god can those boys jump. I swear this gazelle was jumping around like a defective computer game. He must have been jumping as high as a house, well a bungalow at least. I have never seen an animal travel so fast and erratic as that gazelle. I pity the man who hunts the gazelle, I imagine him to be emaciated from lack of food and trying to keep up with this most frenzied of beasts. Colin, who is lazy and plodding along at an almost negative pace, does not even notice my excitement up on his back. The contrast between the camel and the gazelle is immense. All Colin does of any interest is fart. His blast of anal wind seems to give him great satisfaction, which is evident from the twitching of his nose directly after his rectum rumbles.


As daylight fades, we find a cluster of high sand dunes and set up camp. Even when night falls it is fairly warm in the Thar desert. This is contrary to my expectations. I always thought that the desert was virtually uninhabitable by night as the temperatures plummeted. Maybe we just had a warm night. The sand dunes are surprisingly comfortable and elevate our bodies to the perfect position to stare at the endless constellations of stars. We lie there in stony silence, totally motionless, all lost in our own thoughts. I am coming to the end of my 2 year life changing trip, I have recently lost 2 close members of my family, my resources are all but gone, I have got to find a job pretty dam soon etc etc etc. Tonight none of this matters, tonight I'm in a beautiful desert staring at billions of stars and I'm untouchable. I've just turned 25, I'm at a very happy stage of my life and as far as I am concerned nothing can go wrong. How wrong I could be?


When we get back to Jaisalmer we all book in at the guest house that I was staying at. The hospitality of the owner is second to none. This is maybe partly because he is trying to get his guest house recognised by the Lonely Planet but also because he is a genuinely lovely person. I am only too happy to recommend his place to my friends and they seem happy to go there. We all go off in our separate directions and agree to meet at reception in an hours time.


I take a shower and return to the bedroom. As I am drying myself, the shutters start to gently tap against the wall and I am alerted to a strange whistling noise outside. I walk over to the small sandstone window and peer out. I am confronted by a most peculiar and arresting site. The wind is picking up with each second and with it comes the desert sand, which is swirling around in all directions and resembling mini whirlwinds. Anything which has not been secured is crashing around into the buildings which have shutters protecting them from such an event. The force of the wind is so strong that visibility has been reduced to less than a few metres. I stand and watch in excitement for a few minutes. Suddenly the place is thrown into complete darkness as the electricity supply is evidently wiped out by the storm. I hear the yells of anxiety from the girls in the next room and decide to go and check on them. This is a task which with only a glimmer of light would take a few seconds to complete but with zero light it proves very difficult. I cannot even see my hand when it is a few inches in front of my face. With outstretched arms I stumble around the room desperately trying to remember the position of the furniture. It takes several stubbed toes and bashed shins before I eventually mentally map the room enough to find the doorway.


Our group congregate on the landing and everyone describes how they have just gone through exactly the same rigmarole as me. The guest house owner who is well prepared for desert storms, supplies us with a couple of lanterns and we head downstairs. The ferocity of the storm is so hard that we decide to eat dinner with the guest house owners. Dinner lasts for a few hours and is interspersed with much chat. We're dining by candlelight, outside a storm is raging and we're in the middle of a desert. Travelling doesn't get much better than this. We are all excited, as if we are electrically charged by the roaring tempest. After dinner we all retire to the room which the boy's share. Here, we play cards by candlelight for a few hours before I go off to bed. As I enter my bedroom I feel a strange tingling sensation and sense that somebody has been in my room. I am extremely tired so I ignore my inner feelings and get into my bed. I soon fall into a deeply satisfying slumber, my mind bulging with new tales to be relayed in the future.


The next morning I gather my stuff together and go downstairs to settle the bill. The others are waiting for me and have already paid up. I retrieve my money belt from my bag and go to unzip it. That's strange I think, it is already unzipped. I reach inside expecting to find a fat bunch of rupee's, however there only appears to be a few notes in there. A feeling of unease runs through my nervous system. Hastily, I check my pockets, no nothing there. I pull everything out of my rucksack, nothing there either. By now I am in a panic and the idea that I have been robbed has entered my mind. The others look on and are sharing my thoughts. The guest house owner also watches my frantic actions and he is looking both confused and anxious. I mentally retrace my actions of the previous evening, all the time focusing on the feeling of unease which I had experienced before falling asleep. Once I am satisfied that I no longer have the money, I yell out, "I've been robbed".The guest house owner, who is genuinely surprised says "Mr Andy, this cannot be". The dialogue between the guest house owner and myself goes something like this:


"Seriously, my money it's gone",
"Mr Andy, this good guest house, this happen never",
"I'm sorry, but it has, I'm telling you I've been robbed"
"Mr Andy, no this happen never, it cannot be, we good people",
"I'm not accusing you, I am just telling you that my money was there yesterday and today it's gone".
"Mr Andy please, check again, this not happen, no this not happen never",
"I've checked everywhere, it's gone, I know it's gone, I can feel it was stolen",
"Oh no, I am so so much shame, I feel so bad".


By this time I am feeling sorry for the guest house owner, at no point have I ever felt that he was in on this. He is as innocent as I am, I trust this guy implicitly. He believes me as much as I believe him and we start the investigation process together. Suddenly, he seems to have a great realisation and bursts into life. He goes into the guest house and shouts something to his son in his mother tongue. The son quickly dashes off into the town and the guest house owner ushers us of to the roof top terrace where we normally dine. He asks to have our breakfast and wait until he comes back. We follow his guidance. What happens next is like something from a James Bond movie.


To coin a phrase, all hell breaks loose. The normally peaceful town of Jaisalmer bursts into life. People seem to appear from everywhere. The town is comprised of lots of small alleyways and all of these alleyways are full of people, who appear to be checking every doorway. They seem to be searching with intent, as though they know the object of their desire. From our perfect vantage point we can see everything that is going on. Eventually, it seems that the town has been fully searched and the search party which is around a hundred people, run off into the desert. The party is led by members of the police force, who are waving their batons in the air as they run.


The search party who look like legions of ants from where we are sat, are off in every direction. I estimate that they are a distance of around a km from where we sit, when they come to a sudden halt. They all gather together and then start walking back towards the town. As they get closer we see that there is a guy at the front of the posse and this guy is being beaten by several policemen. They are hitting him with sticks, kicking him and generally torturing him as they progress towards the town. The procession enters the town and disappears from view.


A few minutes later, we hear a commotion downstairs in the restaurant before the guest house owner appears on the roof terrace and shouts "Mr Andy, come quickly, Mr Andy we catch thief". Behind him are a line of people who are all excitedly gesturing for me to follow them. My friends and I follow the posse down the stairs and onto the street. There are people everywhere but the majority seem to be congregated around one house, where they are peering through a window. As we approach, the crowd make way for our group and we enter the house. Once inside I am amazed to see that the captured guy is sat on a chair with his arms tied behind him and blood pouring from his face. A police officer, who appears to be in charge of the torturous operation stands in front of the guy and is wielding a large stick. He see's me enter the room, quickly raises his stick in the air and with one long hard swing brings it crashing down. There is a sickening crack as the stick connects with the guys head and he is completely knocked over along with the chair to which he is tied. Three of the other policemen who are watching on, run up to the thief and hoist the chair back to an upright position. The chief torturer then walks over to me with a big smile on his face and passes me the stick. I stare back at him dumbfounded. Inside I know that he wants me have my turn with the stick but I am playing dumb because this is the last thing on Earth I want to do. I estimate that the guy has stolen around £20 from me and for his light fingered frolics he has had the living crap kicked out of him.


The police do not seem too happy that I have abstained from their burglar battering practices and give him a few extra cracks on my behalf. In the back of my mind I'm thinking "God, I hope that I really have had my money knicked and it is not stashed somewhere in my bag". I look at the thief and feel terribly sorry for him. Although, at this stage in my travels £20 means a lot to me, in the bigger picture it means a hell of a lot more to him. Within a month, I will be back in England and earning more money in a week than he probably earns in a year. I turn and leave the torture chamber, my head in pieces. The guest house owner follows me outside and awkwardly asks me how much I have had stolen. By the tone of his voice I can hear that he is going to repay me every penny of the stolen cash. With this in mind I give a very low estimate. He digs his hand deep into his robe pocket and gives me the money back. There is no point protesting, this is for the honour and reputation of his guest house. I shake his hand and tell him that he is a good man. As a passing comment before I leave, I ask him what happened to the money. It transpires that the thief, had used the money to get extremely drunk and then he had visited the prostitutes. The search party had found him collapsed in the sand dunes. As I walk away, I'm thinking to myself, "Oh well, at least he didn't squander it".


A few days later I ring my gran and I casually tell her that I have been robbed. Little beknown to me, she plays Chinese whispers with the message and before you know it, I've been robbed, hi -jacked, raped and murdered. I had planned to surprise my parents with my trip back home. However, I arrive at Heathrow and they are all awaiting my arrival. My sister has done her Miss Marple act and much against the airlines policies she has pleaded with them to find out if there was an Andrew Mitton on any of the flights to London. Once she is supplied with this information, they have raced off down to London to await my arrival. My mum is convinced that it is not me that will emerge through the arrivals gate but an Indian thief that has stolen my ticket and assumed my identity. I emerge triumphant back on English soil after 2 years, 4 continents, 15 countries, a few thefts, numerous close shaves and thousands of stories. I walk through the arrivals gates at Heathrow and there they all are, mum, dad and sister. I am amazed to see them as they are happy to see me.